Border Wall Swindle: A Fence Transitions


During President Trump’s State of the Union address, he mentioned the work being done on the border wall. I’m not going to argue about his misleading statements. Instead, let’s just take his statement at face value. Moreover, let’s assume his statements are 100% correct. What do they tell us about his promise to build a wall?

“We have now completed over 100 miles and have over 500 miles fully completed in a very short period of time. Early next year we will have substantially more than 500 miles completed,”

President Donald J. Trump

So we see here that President Trump puts the total existing border wall at 500 miles. Furthermore, his administration takes credit for 100 miles of that wall. Later in the speech, he points out that many members of Congress “voted for a wall”. He is referring to the Secure Fence Act of 2006.

The act was signed into law in 2006. Thus, the Bush and Obama administrations had 10 years to build. 2 years for President Bush, and 8 for President Obama. Hence the existing 400 miles of wall that President Trump didn’t take credit for.

400÷10=40. Hence, the previous administrations were building a border wall at a rate of 40 miles per year. 100÷3=33.3 Therefore, President Trump is building a border wall at a rate of 33 1/3 miles per year.

Assuming that this were the only problem, it’s a pretty big one. President Obama was building a wall at a rate of 7 miles a year more than President Trump. However, that is simply the beginning.

When a fence transitions to a border wall…

Remember, Senators voted for the Secure Fence Act. President Trump, however, campaigned on replacing that fence with a border wall. Now it appears that the structure which was built as a fence has begun to identify as a wall. Hopefully, it won’t attempt to use the little walls room. I digress.

President Trump promised to build a wall. Moreover, he promised that Mexico would pay for it. However, he is building a fence at a slower pace than the two preceding Presidents and calling it a wall. Meanwhile, Mexico hasn’t been billed a single penny.

The beauty of this point is that it’s based on President Trump’s own numbers. No “Deep State” agent at Border Patrol can be blamed for cooking the numbers on the website. That leaves one escape hatch for Trump supporters.

Border Wall

Democrats in Congress are to blame.

Since assigning blame isn’t exactly a scientific process, I can’t debunk this. However, I can point to the flaw in the logic. It is possible that Democrats in Congress were more willing to give money to a Democratic President to build a fence that Democrats oppose. But why would they? So let’s put some positive spin on it for the President, shall we?

President Obama built a weak and pathetic border fence. Under President Trump, that fence now identifies as a much stronger border wall. However, the structure being built by President Trump is being built as a wall. Therefore, it is much tougher to build. Hence, it takes longer. This theory has only one flaw. Why doesn’t President Trump just build the more quickly assembled border fence and allow it to transition into a big beautiful wall like Obama did?

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